One Lord, One World, No. 14 of 16 No. 14 of 16

During the next half hour, the National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated independent stations have made their facilities available to the National Council of Catholic Men as a public service for the presentation of the Catholic Hour. During the course of our program today, the right-reverned monsenior Fulton J. Sheen will deliver the 14th in a series of sixteen addresses under the general title, One Lord, One World, and the Choir of the Church of the Blessed Sacrament, New York City, under the direction of Warren Foley will provide the music. Require now things the D.S. Eare and the Lachra Moshe from the Requiem Mass by Mozart. The Church of the Blessed Sacrament, New York City, under the direction of Warren Foley. The Church of the Blessed Sacrament, New York City, under the direction of Warren Foley. The Church of the Blessed Sacrament, New York City, under the direction of Warren Foley. The Church of the Blessed Sacrament, New York City, under the direction of Warren Foley. The Church of the Blessed Sacrament, New York City, under the direction of Warren Foley. The Church of the Blessed Sacrament, New York City, under the direction of Warren Foley. The Church of the Blessed Sacrament, New York City, under the direction of Warren Foley. The Church of the Blessed Sacrament, New York City, under the direction of Warren Foley. The Church of the Blessed Sacrament, New York City, under the direction of Warren Foley. The Church of the Blessed Sacrament, New York City, under the direction of Warren Foley. The Church of the Blessed Sacrament, New York City, under the direction of Warren Foley. We now present the right-revern, Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen, who addresses the Catholic-Hour audience. The title of Monsignor Sheen's talk today is the sixth word to the cross, a word to sensationalists. Monsignor Sheen. Friends, one of the most interesting of all irreligious groups is that of the sensationalists. By the sensationalists, we mean those for whom religion must always be dramatic, for those who judge religion by their feelings, rather than by their mind, by their wills. Religion to them is a tithylation rather than a sanctification, a feeling good rather than a being good, a startling overtone rather than a quiet, subdued minor. They accuse the Church of doing nothing because it is not doing anything sensational. Just as they might say, there's nothing in the papers today because there was no train wreck, no riot, and no murder mystery. If, for example, I announced that next Sunday I would broadcast standing on my head in order to symbolize that the world was topsy-turvy, and if in that ecstasy of modernity I called my posture the Iambic-Dithrambic posture, I would have most of the newspaper photographers of New York in the studio in Excundee. Headlines would appear in the papers, remarkable news symbolism, father sheen stands on his head. My radio audience would pick up a thousand percent. But if I announced that next Friday night, good Friday night, I would talk to you on the paction of our blessed Lord, as I shall do, few would listen. There is nothing so calculated to win modern minds to religion as playing the fool, catering to the gallery and making salvation dramatic. And these sensationalists of our day had their representatives at the cross, and the person of the Roman soldiers, St. Duke writes of them, and the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him and offering him vinegar and saying, if thou be the king of the Jews, say of thyself, these men were not Jews. They were not citizens of conquered Israel. These soldiers were proudly on the airs of Rome's screaming eagles. Why then did they mockingly refer to him on the cross as the king of the Jews? Because in keeping with the spirit of paganism, they thought all gods were national gods. Babylon had its god. The meads and the Persians had theirs. The Greeks had theirs and so did the Romans. The implication was that of all the national gods, none seemed poorer and weaker than the god of Israel, who could not save himself from a tree. But there was something more significant still in their mockery. These men were sensationalists, hence the expected religion to be very dramatic, just as dramatic as unloosing fetters, and turning across into a throne. And their eyes, God, could justify himself only by doing a stunt, by pandering to their love of excitement. They wanted a life of Christ like Hollywood might do it, with love scenes between Jews and Magdalene. That is why they asked him to step down from the cross. They wanted an incident which would make them say, oh, when their eyes saw it, rather than one which would make them say, I believe, when their minds under the grace of God knew it. Galt, through the ages, there have been groups like those sensationalists, who despise the Anabhruciv in religion. In the Old Testament, for example, Naaman came to Elias the prophet to be cured of leprosy. He expected a dramatic cure, but the man of God told him to go and wash in the Jordan. And in disgust it's such a simple commonplace suggestion, Naaman turned away and left him in rage. Satan too believes in the dramatic. One of the temptations on the Mount was to suggest that our Lord throw himself down from the pinnacle. Now the sensationalists at the cross, with their jaded appetites and their sadistic impulses, make the same appeal, come down from the cross with rose buds in place of scars. Garlands in place of a crown of thorns, and with power instead of sacrifice. That is what they wanted. And just suppose he had come down from that cross unscored, would these sensationalists have believed? They probably would have summoned, they learned it professor from Athens, to prove that it was all an illusion. And while these soldiers were asking for something as dramatic as the King of the Jews, unloosening his manacles of steel, our visit Lord answered them in a very simple word. A word which meant the drama is already over. And the word that he spoke was a very quiet word of triumph. It is finished. And to those soldiers it must have been just as preposterous as if you came into a theater about 831 evening. And while you asked, when is the curtain going up? Someone on the stage answered, I'm very sorry. The play is over. The curtain is already rung down. You have missed the show. It is finished. And sensationalist misdivinity for just that reason. The real, true religion is always unspectacular. The foolish virgins go to buy oil for their lamps, and when they come back they find that the bridegroom has already returned, and the door was closed. It was so undromantic. A beautiful maiden ox at the door of an inn. And an innkeeper says to her that there is no room. Into a stable she goes, and there a child is born. It was God's entrance into the world. But it was so undromantic. A collector of taxes is seated at a table counting money. And a passer by calls to him and says, come, follow me. And Matthew became an apostle. It was so undromantic. Three common criminals, at least criminals on the eyes of the Roman law, carry their crosses up a hill. One of them, our Lord forgives and receives into paradise. It was so undromantic. Reveal that our Lord was in very truth, the Son of God. For as the eternal word, was now making a report to his Heavenly Father, that the redemption of man was now finished, and the time was right for sending his Holy Spirit into the souls of men to make them children of God. What was so wonderfully created could now be more marvelously regenerated. In the beginning of the world, God saw that it was good and rejoiced. And now the Son sees that it is better, and breaks out into a poem of joy. It is perfect, where sin abound it, graced as morta bound. Through all eternity, the Father says to His Son, thou art My Son. This day have I begotten thee. And now the Son says to the Father, thou art My Father. This day have I finished it. From now on he can await the Father's rending of the grave on Easter mourn, in the final proclamation that it was not He who died. It was sin. This word of our Lord was not the sigh of a sufferer finding relief. It was the word of a divine artist finishing that work His Father had given Him to do, in finishing it at a very early age, about the age of 33. Thus the perfecting of creation by redemption, and the restoration to fall in men of the dignity of divine adoption, was rendered all the more undramatic because our Lord did not finish His life with an autobiography. Rather as autobiography was a biography. He did not say, I finished it, but rather it is finished. He is not the subject of the greatest work which was ever rocked on this poor sinful earth of ours. The servant of Yavi did not name himself, but rather speaks of the whole program which God walked through Him. Nor is he saying, thank God that I have not been unsuccessful, or I will be remembered. The it rather than the eye closes the autobiography of the Son, as if it were a biography written by the Father and the Holy Spirit, our Lord could not endure the thought of a book entitled, My Three Years in Israel. He therefore is not one of the world's great men. We often say that our Lord was a great man. If He were just that, He would not be all that He is. Good and great men never lie. And our Lord said that He was the Son of God. Therefore He was either the Son of God, or He was not a great man. Great men in the world, He's said to the term are always dramatic. As if their works needed some justification, they ring down the curtain of their life with a great iron. They always reveal themselves with this man on the cross concealed himself, even in death. This special word, therefore, to all you sensationalists, salvation is not sensational. Faith is not emotional. The redemption is not dramatic. You can sit in the very shadow of the cross, as did the soldiers, and still miss its meaning. You can justify your refusal to come to God because of scandal, so did the soldiers. For it was an awful scandal that Christ the son of God should swing impotent from a peg. But God comes to use sensationalists in the zephyrs, not in the thunders, therefore look for Him in the commonplace. For He is not far from every one of us. In Him we live, and move, and are. As Francis Thompson said, turn but a stone, and start a wing. His voice, did we know it? Beaks that are old, clay-shotered doors. You ever remember an evening, when the deadening sounds of the world faded away, and you found yourself gazing down, and you avenue of spiritual yearning? Do you know what that was? That was the voice of God. That was an actual grace. Did you ever feel remorse, the sense of emptiness, a disgust with excesses, or a wish for inner peace? That was the voice of God. And those of you who may have given up the church or sensationalism may feel during this week, and urge to return and to go to confession. That is an actual grace. That is the voice of God. And those of you who have received this little book which we are giving away free, book called Friends, which we will send to anyone who asks for it. You, Protestant or Catholic, to you who have read it, and felt impaled to be more kind to your neighbor, and to your enemy. Now you know that it was not the book that so inspired you, was the voice of God. It was an actual grace. Make this experiment. I care not whether you believe in God or not for the moment, but at your first opportunity, please stop in a Catholic church for a visit. Now if you are not Catholics, and therefore if you do not believe as we do, that our Lord is really and truly present in the Blessed Sacrament, just go there and sit down for an hour, make your hour that way, that hour that we ask for every week. And within that hour, you will experience this repousing peace the life of which you have never before enjoyed in your life. You probably will ask yourself, as he's sensationalist once asked me, when I took him up to the Basilica of the Sacricura in Paris, where we spent the whole night in adoration of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament with about 1,500 other men. What is it he said that is in that church? Without voice or argument or a thundering demands, you will have an awareness of something before which your whole spirit trembles, a sense of the divine. Lord, walk into your soul with silent steps. He comes to us more than we go to Him. Every time a channel is made for Him, he pours into it his fresh gift of grace, and it is all done so unpromatically, in prayer, in the sacraments, before the altar, in loving service of fellow-man. Never will his coming be just what you will expect, and yet it never will disappoint. The more we respond to his gentle pressure, the greater will be our freedom. Too long have each and every one of us said, I want to be just myself. Oh, can we think of anything better than that? How about beginning to be with the help of God's actual graces, a veritable child of God? God love you. Monsignor Sheen has just delivered an address entitled the sixth word to the cross, a word to sensationalists. A copy of this talk may be obtained by writing to the National Council of Catholic Men Washington, D.C., or to the station to which you are now listening. A copy of Monsignor Sheen's little booklet, Friends, will also be sent to anyone who desires it. Next Friday evening, good Friday, from 10.45 to 11 o'clock p.m., Eastern wartime, over many of these same stations, Monsignor Sheen will deliver a talk entitled the seventh word to the cross, a word to pagans. We cordially invite you to listen. And now we invite all those listening to Joy and Monsignor Sheen in offering up this prayer in time of war. O Lord Jesus Christ, who in thy mercy hear us the prayers of sinners, for forth we beseech thee, all grace and blessing upon our country and its citizens. We pray in particular for the President, for our Congress, for all our soldiers, for all who defend us in ships, whether on the sea, or on the sea, or on the sea, or on the sea, or on the skies, for all who are suffering the hardships of war, we pray for all who are imperils, or in danger. Bring us all after the troubles of this life into the haven of peace, and reunite us all together for everything that we have been through, and reunite us all together for ever O dear Lord, in thy glorious heavenly kingdom. Bring us all. Bring us all. All. You are invited to listen to the Catholic Hour next Sunday at this same time, on Seen You Sheen, who deliver an address entitled Easter. Special music with orchestral accompaniment will be performed by the choir of the Church of the Blessed Sacrament, New York City. I feel all of glory as we will play for ever as we will play for ever. I feel all of glory as we will play for ever. I feel all of glory as we will play for ever. I feel all of glory as we will play for ever. I feel all of glory as we will play for ever. The Music On Today's program was directed by Warren Fouley. Your announcer is John Patrick Costello. The National Council of Catholic Men has presented the Catholic Hour through the facilities of the National Broadcasting Company and its independent affiliated stations, which have been made available as a public service, and as a contribution to the religious life of America. Music This is the National Broadcasting Company.